I was thinking I should put a end note on my Flying Nun box set saga, so instead of talking shite, here's the winning entry to Public Address's competition for said box set: Favourite Flying Nun moment:

Sneaking a copy of The Skeptics 'AFFCO' music vid into a conference presentation organised and attended by meat industry bigwigs. A small revenge for making half my whanau redundant in 1986 at Whakatu, and the other half redundant in '94 at Tomoana. It was 1996, so I must've been about 15 I think. The Skeptics are one of my all time favourite groups, strangely enough of all their songs A.F.F.C.O for which they are perhaps best known is the one I like least - or maybe not to sound anti the track, cause it is wicked good, its the least interesting thing they did. Skeptics III, is my favourite rainy night drifting off to sleep album - on CD, flick past A.F.F.C.O set the volume of the stereo just a tiny bit quieter than the sound of the rain on the roof and let ya slee…

"When I first heard Linton Kwesi Johnson's words, they came flowing through a nearly blown-out sound system in a Los Angeles punk club in the early '80s.

I could barely hear him, but something about the intensity of his delivery--urgent, streetwise and intellectual--over a pulsing reggae beat made me take notice.

Pressed up against the stage, I turned my small, 15- year-old frame around to watch as a handful of older punks begin to chant the lyrics, mimicking Johnson's thick, Jamaican Creole English:

it woz in april nineteen eight wandoun inna di ghetto af Brixtandat di babylan dem cauz such a frickshan dat it bring about a great insohreckshan an it spread all owevah di naeshan it woz truly an histarical occayshan

That song, "Di Great Insohreckshan," tells the story of the Brixton race riots of 1981, when working-class Black and Asian immigrants teamed up …

"I'd like to say that people . . . people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. Show me any country . . . and there'll be people in it just trying to take their humanity back into the center of the ring . . . . And follow that for a time. Y'know, think on that. Without people you're nothing." -- Joe Strummer

Is anything left in music that is even vaguely redeeming? In the face of all the soulless pabulum being fed to us in the MTV-strangled airwaves, I often wonder if the industry has won. When rock n' roll is so full of the cynical, the snide, the intentionally ironic, it seems like record companies are signing bands that not only won't say anything but won't feel anything. Not caring is the fad of the day, and righteousness is passé, naïve, and stupid.

Antonino D'Ambrosio agrees. As we sit in a bar on the Lower East Side of New Yor…

Record For the Day: Pig Out - Club Poems, loving this album at the moment

Game of the day: Sim City 4, Rush Hour expansion, why it is always this time of year I reinstall this puppy I have no idea... maybe its the countless hours I like to invest in a railway network. I'd have given up on this game not long after its release if it weren't for the thousands of add ons. I love to build :)

Monarach of the day: The Queen. Our monarch represents all I don't. Yet I still dig the weirdness of it all.

I remember John Campbell coming into Flying Nun in the Queen Street days, he was like an excited school boy let loose in a lolly shop.... a sometimes typical fan response to the place. Theres nothing cooler than a geeky fan IMO. Hat trying to give him stuff, him trying to pay for it, a very endearing moment.

John Campbell embodies much of the warm fuzzies that labels like Flying Nun engender in oneself. He's a typical kiwi in so many ways.

William Lind December 06, 2006Last week, one of my students, a Marine captain, asked whether I had heard a news report about an “IED-like device” supposedly found near Cincinnati, and if I thought we would soon start seeing IEDs here in the U.S. I replied that I had not heard the news story, but as to whether we would see IEDs here at home, the answer is yes.

One of the things U.S. troops are learning in Iraq is how people with little training and few resources can fight a state. Most American troops will see this within the framework of counterinsurgency. But a minority will apply their new-found knowledge in a very different way. After they return to the U.S. and leave the military, they will take what they learned in Iraq back to the inner cities, to the ethnic groups, gangs, and other alternate loyalties they left when they joined the service. There, they will put their new knowledge to work, in wars with each other and wars against the American state. It will not …

no Nun Box Set... call to Warners, they are having problems with the shrink wrap

FFS you muppets, who shrink wraps a bloody box set that is only CDs - vinyl I can understand, almost

Now I am used to the Nun not making release deadlines and I remember the newsprint days of Rip It Up when the Chris Knox penned Nun ad's always pre dated the physical release by wekks if not issues of the magazine - no doubt causeing some retailers to learn to hate the Nun.

But this isn't a straggling indie label with no cash, its one of the biggest record companies in the world, whilst I realise they have shite christmas priorities that dwarf that of the Flying Nun birthday release but come on, I want my box set.....

Worse is the birthday being touted by all and sundry with appearances by Roger (Sheppard) on radio, TV etc. to promote the set.... even Real Groove has an issue devoted (? - dunno how much have yet to sight a copy) to the brithday but alas whe…

Damn that makes one panic, like the world is passing one by or worse its come to an end.

Hell get a grip man... its a lovely day and you have things to do - better things that sitting behind a monitor indoors.

Hows that Iraqi Study group report then....

How to state the obvious at great expense and protect the interests of ya big business mates huh... oh well privatisaion of Iraq's oil assets was always one of the goals.

Time to stop calling yourself a democracy - where was the anti war voice in that report? Where was the interests of the average Amercian? Where was the interests of the average Iraqi (well them still alive)? Where was the voice of the military?

Whilst the old guard do battle with the new who will consider the American public in all this?

And well done being the only country to vote against the UN proposal to draw up uniform worldwide arms sales regulations.... you could have abstained like the other war profiteers, but nope, the only…

My box set didn't arrive yesterday - not surprised but bored by the whole affair now, I had planned a slow day... and that day was designed around two things; the hangover (check), the box set (uncheck).

Stink

Still come Monday maybe I'll have it.

To compensate somewhat I've ordered me the Reduction Agents album, I hope I like it, I'm pretty sure I will. The track they are currently over playing on BFM (fucking sort ya shitty playlist out ya bastards.... YOU ARE NOT MOREFM, or dump ya innovator tag), is simply glorious, modern indie pop with a firm nod to the 60's. I expect this album Monday... so at worst I'll have something to devour Monday night.

I should also have got the Vorn album, perhaps my pick of albums from here this year, which I like a dumb thing am still debating buying. Doh!

So with my day not going to my weeks plans what to do.....

To important matters, Bob's been offered a gig.... a paying one at that - shock horror....

A mix of queer politics, explicit sexuality, symphonic indie pop, and theatrical spectacle that borders on the religious, Toronto's the Hidden Cameras are the brainchild of singer/songwriter/guitarist Joel Gibb. The 2001 debut album Ecce Homo — a collection of four-track demos released on Gibb's own Evil Evil imprint — introduced a stripped-down version of the Hidden Cameras' witty, acoustic-based songwriting, which drew comparisons to the Magnetic Fields and Belle & Sebastian. Ecce Homo also caught the ear of Rough Trade, whose signing of Gibb made the Hidden Cameras the first Canadian artist on the label in its 25-year history. Meanwhile, the group's elaborate live performances, which include up to 30 go-go dancers, strippers, and musicians, as well as videos, projected lyrics, and heavy audience participation, won the group a widespread and devoted following in Canada. 2003's Rough Trade debut, The Smell of Our Own, reflected some of the group's more el…

First the advent of John Key who is already showing signs of being just another National Politican, he could learn a lot from his deputy Bill English.

Apple's digital music download service launched here yesterday, again for some its like Jesus has graced us with his presence. Well I guess if you were a Mac person, with all the faith and passion they often display it might seem like a second coming - it certainly ain't a first as we've waited a long time for the store to open here, for many reasons the biggest of which being a with holding tax issue between NZ and Australia (where the store is hosted and run).

I've never quite got the whole obsession Mac owners have with their computers, I'm damn fond of my PC I must admit but also see it for what it is, an amazing yet still flawed tool.

Well we now have access to Apples online sotre, yippeee, now all the mac converts can go back to limewire happy in the knowledge that should th…

I've been watching the coverage of the events unfolding in Fiji with a growing lack of understanding.

I realise there is a coup in progress - a rather amusing coup compared to the sort of thing we usually associate with such a political/military event.

Thankfully so, I'd rather people consider the whole affair a little 'mickey mouse' than be witnessing the carnage and casualties of a fullscale military clampdown with the shooting and lose of lives that is more the 'norm' with such things.

Its not quite the event we saw in Thailand earler this year, the Fijians are taking their time, even taking time out from the leadup to hold their annual Police vs Military Rugby match.

I do wish I'd more knowledge on the reasons for the coup - all we are getting is reportage of the actual events in the medai, no back story, no details on why the military are taking over and as such I'm a tad confused and cannot decide if in the longterm for the Fijians this is a good thin…

What better way to celebrate a friends birthday than indulging in a mock war? Today I survived paintball, here. It was quite a education, in pain and the things we do for fun. Those that know me won't be totally surprised to know I was a crap soldier, I 'died' the most in our team, 11 times - unlike the real world of warcraft I got a prize for my lack of skill, I certainly think that is better than a body bag. I have a golfball growing out of my neck, where one of the many shots I took landed, its quite sore and resembles a hicky - as if I'd had an afternoon of vacum cleaner loving. I have similar welts on my back, my thighs and my ankle. All turning into rather colourful bruises. Why anyone would do this sort of activity for fun I have no idea. Yet for all the pain it was quite a lot of fun, even for a first timer and a crap one at that. We must have looked quite a site with our visors and distinct lack of camo gear, a bunch of townies in the forest fighting for victory when…

Its not disimilar to the talk of the impending launch of iTunes, of which there is much speculation, conjecture and well so much hot air one need not go near a towel.

So is John Key going to rescue the National Party, I think not, but he will revitalise the party somewhat, though any new leader would have the same effect. Me I don't trust him for some reason, I had more faith in Don Brash who really never showed one iota of the intelligence nor skill he must command, his naivity was his downfall.

Key's confidence and followers may be his downfall.

As will be the desire to move the party more to the political centre, no doubt forcing the more hard liners to be attracted to Act and the like and I doubt there are too many Labourites that Key can win over.

If we were still under a first past the post system, National would all but be assured of a victory at the next election, under MM…